"Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
...the fortune of us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being govern'd, as the sea is, by the moon" [Henry IV, I.ii.31-33]
HISTORY NEVER REPEATS ITSELF, BUT IT OFTEN RHYMES
"There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America." Otto von Bismarck

Friday, March 01, 2013

Hit and Run: Obama Regime Most 'Thin-skinned!'

- There was the time the White House banned a San Francisco Chronicle reporter from the White House press pool for filming an anti-Obama protest at a fundraiser. The White House initially claimed it banned the reporter for using a camera when she was only allowed to write what she saw. Then the White House claimed it hadn't banned her at all. All very confusing and weird.
- There was the time the White House prohibited local journalists from covering a Silicon Valley fundraiser, presumably for fear that they'd be better equipped than D.C.-based pool reporters to recognize major players in the California tech scene.
- There was the time the White House denied the Boston Herald a spot in the press pool because it ran a front-page op-ed from Mitt Romney. While the White House later claimed the Boston Globe got the pool spot because it submitted its request first, that explanation doesn't jibe with this email from a White House staffer: "I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters." Loyalty has its rewards!
- There was the time an Orlando Sentinel reporter was made to sit in a closet at a fundraiser for Joe Biden.
- There was the time Obama agreed to sit down with the editor and publisher of the Des Moines Register, so long as the paper agreed not to quote him or even reveal the topics of conversation.
- My favorite overreaction to a media outlet, however, was one I first wrote about a few years ago after a small-town newspaper editor emailed me to say that the White House had asked her to remove a sentence that "reflected poorly" on First Lady Michelle Obama. The story was titled "Inside Marine One, President Obama's Helicopter," and according to the editor, it contained a single line that suggested Obama was somewhat aloof toward the chopper pilots. “Basically," the editor said in her email, "the reporter said that the First Lady didn’t speak to the pilots but acknowledged them by making eye contact." Shortly after the story went online, the editor received a call from the White House asking her to remove the sentence (she did). Shortly after my story went online, the White House called me, too (I added a denial from the First Lady's office to my story, but didn't remove or retract anything we'd already published).
Those are just a handful of media anecdotes (inside-the-Beltway reporters have many, many more stories about the Obama administration flipping its lid over reporters not following their instructions). But the Obama machine's obsession with image management isn't limited to haranguing and punishing journalists--just ask Desiree Rogers, Carlos Pascual, Hillary Clinton, or Stanley McChrystal.
For more on Obama's promise to lead the "most open and transparent administration in history," see this piece.

"This piece" refers to an hilarious story on a slavishly-deferential cadre of do=gooders lining up to give His Opaqueness [or is it 'Opaquitude?'] an award for transparency. The award presentation was off Oblunderer's schedule and closed to the press. No press pool was allowed after the newsies got wind of the award and no transcripts issued afterwards.
The piece linked immediately above also recounts a whistleblower at FOIA going to Cong. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight Cte. She alleges that when she complained about illegal redactions in the materials sought under the Freedom of Information Act on several occasions, she was basically threatened by one of Nazi Lesbian Bitch Napolitano's Brownshirts. Even the DHS Inspector General reprimanded UeberHauptmann Napolitano's behavior after he studied the case.

“Obama’s been co-opted by the national security community,” Drake said. “People hoped he would take them on, but he became enamored by all the secret stuff. He’s getting all these cool briefings. It goes to his head. I can send drones anywhere! It’s very powerful stuff. It becomes pathological.”

Yet the LIAR-in-Chief continues to prate constantly about the transparency of his serfs, and the parrots in his cages repeat it constantly. Not even Solyndra, Fast and Furious and Benghazi have made a dent in this Generalissimo's facade.

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About Me

"''I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young And weep because I know all things now: I have been a hazel-tree, and they hung The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough
Among my leaves in times out of mind....' Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments...the fortune of us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being govern'd, as the sea is, by the moon."
Twenty-and-eight the phases of the moon, The full and the moon’s dark and all the crescents, Twenty-and-eight, and yet but six-and-twenty The cradles that a man must needs be rocked in: For there’s no human life at the full or the dark. From the first crescent to the half, the dream But summons to adventure and the man Is always happy like a bird or a beast; But while the moon is rounding towards the full He follows whatever whim’s most difficult...An aged man is but a paltry thing,A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress....Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.